A Damsel In Distress
by damigella
Summary: Starts the evening after Bombshells: House goes to Cuddy's place, hoping to talk her into continuing the relationship. Warning: non-con, dark!cuddy, dark!wilson, het smut. One shot.


**Title**: A Damsel In Distress  
><strong>Warning<strong>: non-con, dark!cuddy, dark!wilson, non-dark ending.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 2750  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: post Bombshells  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Starts the evening after Bombshells: House goes to Cuddy's place, hoping to talk her into continuing the relationship.  
><strong>Authors' note<strong>: While this is a very different take on events, I am officially allowed to blame this fic on **srsly_yes**.  
>A number of people in my f-list offered concrit to a preliminary version and I am thankful to them all: in alphabetical order, <strong>chocolate_frapp<strong>, **flywoman**, **menolly_au**, **pgrabia**, **srsly_yes**, **yarroway**. Without their contribution, this fic would be much worse.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own any of the House, MD characters, which is good since I tend to kill them.

**March 7, 11pm**

The key turned in the lock and the entrance door opened. "Cuddy? I've seen the light in the living room, I hope you're awake. Cuddy, can we talk?"

Wilson lifted his eyes to see House standing and looking at them both, his face horrified, the cane dropped in a corner. Then his right hand went to his pocket, pulled out a vial, and he quickly dry swallowed three pills. He collected his cane again, and advanced in a menacing way.

"House…"

Cuddy interrupted him. "What are you doing here? We broke up, you aren't welcome anymore. I'm free to fuck whomever I want whenever I want."

House glanced at her for maybe three seconds, then looked back at Wilson. "So _you_ are the reason why she left me! How long have you been after her? Since Sam left? Since earlier? Since those dates so many years ago? Did you even make up the whole cancer scare to make me relapse?"

"House…I..."

"You what? You are, or rather were, my friend! And you have been unable to refrain from fucking my girlfriend for a grand total of three hours after she broke up with me! You should apply to the Guinness book of records, Wilson. Fastest sleeze-ball ever. Bastard! I trusted you. I know that everybody lies, but I thought you were different. I'm an idiot."

"Please, let me explain…"

"That you wanted to make sure I went into full-blown relapse and ended up my days in Mayfield, right? I don't want to hear anything from you, except that you're dying a slow and painful death. That would be welcome news indeed. Goodbye, Cuddy, you'll get my resignation tomorrow. _Mazel tov_ on your new boy-toy."

House banged the door; the motorcycle seemed to start and roar away while the bang still echoed in the silent room.

**March 8, ****1.00pm**

House felt much more clear-headed the next morning after coffee, breakfast and painkillers. Or next afternoon, rather, since he woke up at noon.

He decided against resigning and against going back to Vicodin. The traitorous bastard had stolen away his girlfriend; he didn't need the satisfaction of making him lose his job or sending him back to Mayfield Hell.

When he finally switched them on, both his pager and his cellphone were full of missed calls from his team and from Cuddy. He ignored both and hurried up to PPTH.

He entered the diagnostic room to find his team looking at him with frightened eyes. The whiteboard contained two lines: increasing severe damage to the spinal nerves and uncontrollable pain. Lower down there was another line: intrathecal injection of saline, 9.30 am.

"So is this the new case? Who's the idiot who treats damage to spinal nerves with intrathecal saline?"

"The patient had received the saline when he was well. The symptoms started after the injection."

"Then it wasn't saline. What was it?"

"It was saline. The administering oncology nurse was a trainee, and Wilson made sure at least four people checked that the vial contained saline."

"Why would Wilson be overseeing an injection of saline into a patient?"

"The injection was a test to check the nurse knew how to do the intrathecal. It was supposed to be the first time she would be administering intrathecal chemo, and she was so nervous that Wilson injected the patient himself, and then had her practice on him with saline."

"Wilson's the patient." Foreman's pager beeped, and he looked at it. "He's getting worse by the minute."

"Page the nurse here. Now."

**March 8, 1.15pm**

"Hi, I'm Milena Soares."

The young woman having just entered the diagnostics room had obviously been crying. "How's Dr. Wilson?"

"Not better. If you want to give me a chance to save him, I'll need you to answer some questions. Try to concentrate."

She nodded.

"Whose idea was it that you should practice on Dr. Wilson?"

"It was his idea. I wouldn't have dared to suggest it."

"Where did he get the saline for the injection?"

She frowned. "I can't quite remember. But I think he got it from his coat pocket. Strange, isn't it? Why would he carry saline?"

After one minute of stunned silence, she addressed her questions to the only other woman in the room. "Did I offend him? Why did he run away? Should I wait for him?"

Masters smiled back at her. "You may well have helped save Dr. Wilson's life. I think you can go back to your lunch."

**March 8, 1.30pm**

House quietly entered Wilson's room, and dismissed the nurse on duty, whispering that he would take over now. He locked the door behind him, then fixed his eyes on the pale face in front of him.

He checked the vitals: the morphine was flowing at the recommended maximum level, and still Wilson was obviously in severe pain. His eyes were closed.

"Wilson, wake up."

A thin, quivering voice answered. "I'm awake, House. I'm so sorry for what happened last night."

House could barely control his own fear. He had a tentative diagnosis, and he hoped with all his heart that he was wrong. "Wilson, I don't care about what you did last night. Not anymore. I want to know what you did this morning. Just a simple, yes or no answer: is it vincristine?"

Wilson's eyes got wider. "How…how would you know?"

House was surprised he didn't fall. Or faint. Maybe his brain needed more data to accept the truth and start processing it. "Because I'm a diagnostician, for fuck's sake. How much vincristine was in the 'saline' vial?"

Wilson looked away, avoiding his friend's desperate eyes. "It was pure."

House's voice trembled. "Almost four hours ago… too late for any intervention. Not that even an immediate intervention would have saved you anyway. You'll be in terrible pain for days, then die. Why?" He felt tears welling up inside. He fought them back.

"I wanted to explain what happened." Wilson had to interrupt himself, obviously fighting the unrelenting pain. "You told me what it'd take to make you listen."

"I didn't mean it this way! I was angry and offended but I didn't want you to die! That…that slutty bitch isn't worth the end of our friendship, much less what you did to yourself!"

Wilson looked at him in disbelief. House was crying while yelling, large tears following one another, making his stubble wet, staining the collar of his t-shirt.

He finally controlled himself, stopped crying and dried the tears. "Tell me what happened yesterday. I'll listen."

**March 7, 10pm**

"Thanks for coming. I couldn't discuss this over the phone."

Cuddy let him in. She looked completely disheveled, her hair messy, her makeup melted away by tears. She had a lit joint in her hand.

"What are you doing with that? Who's taking care of Rachel?" Wilson didn't add 'Are you crazy smoking dope alone with a toddler' but felt sure his eyes were speaking.

"Rachel's at my sister's place, and 'that' is something my sister gave me to help me relax. It's a very small one and much healthier than liquor for me. Gilbert's syndrome, you know. Please come in."  
>She pointed to the couch, and Wilson hung his jacket and sat down.<p>

Cuddy sat near him. "House is back on Vicodin. He was stoned when he came to see me pre-op. And I discovered it, and dumped him. He may end up in Mayfield again, or lose his license. Still sure you don't want to share?"

She handed the joint to Wilson, who took it like a drowning man clutching a buoy, and took a puff, immediately followed by another. "You're absolutely sure?"

"Yes. I don't know where he got the Vicodin. Did you give it to him?" Her eyes now looked positively dangerous.

"No, of course not. But…I did tell him he really, really should be with you. He was so scared." Wilson gave back the joint, and started threading his fingers through his hair. "Oh my God, it's my fault. I pushed him too hard."

Cuddy smoked more. "Wilson, it's not your fault. Nor mine. A normal human being wouldn't need to be high to express love to his dying girlfriend, even assuming that was his first relapse. House is an addict, and I was stupid to even try and have a relationship with him."

Wilson had another puff from the joint and gave it back to Cuddy. He tried to remember how long it had been from the last time he'd smoked weed. At least a decade, he thought. He better stop now or he would lose control, particularly after the stress and lack of sleep of the last few days.

"It was an extreme situation. He deserves another chance. He loves you so much, and has been clean so long. It might well have been an isolated case."

Cuddy took one last, angry drag, then she smothered the unfinished joint in an ashtray and started crying. "No. I'm a mother, and I need to choose a mate in life taking Rachel into account. And House is a sexy genius, but he's no father material, and I should have known it." She cried harder and harder.

Wilson passed his right arm around her shaking shoulders, trying to comfort her. With the left hand he caressed her hair, which were now covering all of her face; he couldn't see her crying, only hear her desperate sobs. "Calm down, Cuddy. You're just shocked. Too much has happened too fast. Take your time, think it over, and give House and yourself another chance."

Wilson was happy to hear her sobs slow down. Her arms circled his neck as if looking for support.

"You should spend the night at your sister's, and I definitely should be visiting House. He needs me now. Should I call you a cab?"

Suddenly Cuddy's face was next to his, and he could smell the weed on her breath, the shampoo she had used, even the faint perfume of the make up she had on. "I don't need my sister now. I need a man to make me forget House." She tightened her grip on his neck and pushed her mouth on Wilson's, sneaking her tongue in.

Wilson was caught by surprise. He tried to push her back, but he was afraid of hurting her - she was little more than half his weight after all. And his weed-addled brain was reacting very differently than his rational mind to the warm, curvy body in his arms. He actually could feel, to his horror, his dick getting hard, as her wet kisses started sliding down his throat.

"Cuddy, please stop. Let me go."

She ignored his protest, and while her mouth stayed glued to the sensitive spot she'd found just above his collarbone, her hands had unzipped his pants and started playing with what was now a full erection.

"No, Cuddy. You shouldn't. Stop, please, I don't want this."

Her mouth interrupted its work, but her hands didn't. "I shouldn't? Why shouldn't I? I want to, and apparently so do you! Come to think of it," she looked down, apparently pleased with what she saw, "you look really great, and I haven't given head to a cut dick in ages. I used to be really good at it."

She bent down and swallowed him whole, her fingernails playing with his balls.

"No, Cuddy. No."

He knew he should push her away. He just couldn't bring himself to use violence against a woman. And his body desperately ached for release. What she did felt wonderful.

She let him slip out for one moment and asked, with a saucy smile "Do you really want me to stop?"

Wilson tried to repeat his protests but he didn't seem to find the words; or maybe the words got lost as she swallowed him deeper, while two manicured fingers found their way to his prostate, soon followed by a third.

Pressured by cannabis, an active tongue, two skilled lips and three even more skilled fingers, Wilson's body soon found its way to his first _ejaculatio praecox_ since the end of high school.

The key turned in the lock and the entrance door opened.

**March 8, 2.30pm**

Wilson struggled for words. "House. Please believe me. I never wanted to betray your trust."

House sat on the bed near him, and hugged him. "I believe you."

Wilson's eyes locked with his, and the pain in them slowly ebbed. Instead, they became filled with a powerful emotion, an intense, warm one, like House had seen in them the evening when he had found the organ in the condo.

"Wilson...you aren't in pain any longer, are you?"

The man he held in his arms smiled mischievously. "I never said there was vincristine in the vial. You did."

House basically jumped up to a standing position without even looking for the cane. He blocked the morphine pump.

Wilson's smiled widened. "Ah, I will miss it. I really should become a drug addict."

House looked ready to have a stroke. Or a heart attack. He grabbed his cane again, sat on the visitor's chair, and sighed loudly, his knuckles white on the cane. "Wilson, another prank like this and I'll kill you myself."

"Look, it was you who insisted I should die in pain."

"You lied to me! Made me think you were dying a horrible death and it was my fault!"

"Technically, I didn't lie. It was pure...saline solution. I wouldn't store vincristine in a container labeled saline anyway, too dangerous."

House felt eerily like the two of them had switched roles.

Wilson's voice now was serious, repentance in it but also a touch of repressed anger. "House, I'm sorry I scared you. I just wanted to have a chance to talk to you. I admit it wasn't my brightest idea, but I wasn't so clear-headed this morning. I was on your doorstep waiting for you to come home until 4am."

"I didn't see you."

"I left when I heard the motorcycle. You had been clean so long it wasn't safe for you to drive after three Vicodin. I was so scared I couldn't go home and sleep until I knew you had made it home safe."

House sighed. Wilson had been a complete asshole, but he hadn't been blameless either. And if Wilson had said the truth, it would have spared them both a lot of trouble if he'd just listened the previous evening.

"I'll see whether Cuddy confirms your story."

"She will."

House looked at Wilson. The same emotion was shining in his eyes he had seen before. He thought back of the woman whom he had thought the love of his life. Of the man in front of him. He remembered how each of Cuddy and Wilson had behaved towards him, in the recent and not so recent past.

"Wilson... this can't be all. Why were you so concerned about my opinion of you? So upset that you faked a gruesome suicide attempt just to make me listen to you?"

Wilson went very silent. He seemed to stop breathing altogether. Than he took House's hands in his. ""I've been thinking a lot since Sam left. About me. And about you. I love you, House. I can live with being your friend, but not with you hating me." The brown eyes looking into his were incredibly serious, the voice low but firm.

House hadn't expected this, and was at loss not only of words but of thoughts. His world seemed to have been moving a bit too fast in the last three days. "Look, Wilson, you know rebound relationships are doomed. Plus, I'm not quite sure where I stand on the Kinsey scale. I'll need time to think about this. A lot of time."

"I'll wait as long as needed, and I'm well aware that we might end up staying just friends. We don't need to discuss this again unless you want to."

Suddenly the seriousness vanished from Wilson's eyes, and the mischievous look returned. "As a last desire of an almost-dying man, how about you take due revenge on Cuddy?"

"You mean…"

"An eye for an eye. Tell her you decided to try yourself what she had obviously enjoyed. Claim that I went multi-orgasmic." 


End file.
